Martin Zweig - Growth Investor

During the 15 years that it was monitored, Zweig's stock recommendation newsletter returned an average of 15.9 percent per year, during which time it was ranked number one based on risk-adjusted returns by Hulbert Financial Digest. Zweig has managed both mutual and hedge funds during his career, and he's put the fortune he's compiled to some interesting uses. He has owned what Forbes reported was the most expensive apartment in New York, a $70 million penthouse that sits atop Manhattan's Pierre Hotel, and he is a collector of all sorts of pop culture and historical memorabilia -- among his purchases are the gun used by Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry", a stock certificate signed by Commodore Vanderbilt, and even two old-fashioned gas pumps similar to those he'd seen at a nearby gas station while growing up in Cleveland, according to published reports.

Since 2003, this portfolio has returned 396.6%, outperforming the market by 247.1% using its optimal quarterly rebalancing period and 20 stock portfolio size.

Martin Zweig - Growth Investor

Validea used the investment strategy outlined in the book Winning on Wall Street written by Martin Zweig to create our Growth Investor portfolio.

Zweig is a growth investor with a serious conservative streak. To pass his strategy, a stock must meet a slew of earnings-related criteria, showing that its earnings growth is: at a high rate over the long haul; persistent over several years in a row; accelerating in more recent quarters; and sustainable, i.e. driven by sales growth, not cost-cutting measures. In addition, Zweig wanted to make sure he wasn't paying too much for a company's growth. If a stock was selling at a price/earnings multiple that was more than three times the market average, or greater than 43 regardless of the market P/E, he avoided it. Another part of his conservative streak: Zweig wanted a firm's debt/equity ratio to be low compared to its industry average.